BRISTOL, Tenn. — Kyle Busch moved one step closer to sweeping the weekend at Bristol Motor Speedway, winning the Nationwide Series race Friday night after intentionally wrecking Brad Keselowski.
The boos rained down on Busch as he celebrated his 10th Nationwide victory of the season, and second since arriving at Bristol on Wednesday. He won the Truck Series race, and will try to make it a sweep tonight in the Sprint Cup Series race.
Busch is the defending champion of the Cup race.
He had to work hard to get the Nationwide win, battling for at least a dozen laps with Keselowski for the lead. He finally made the pass with 31 laps to go, but as he slid in front of Keselowski, Busch didn’t have him cleared and contact between the cars sent Busch down the track and back to second.
He promptly drove back up to Keselowski’s bumper and intentionally spun him. Keselowski, the Nationwide Series points leader, wound up 14th while Busch survived several late cautions to reach Victory Lane.
“I raced him, raced him, raced him, I don’t know, 12-15 laps? I thought I had him cleared up the back and I moved up in front of him and instead of him doing an (Dale) Earnhardt crossover, he decided to just run into the back of me and put me in the fence,” Busch said.
“That’s Brad Keselowski. So I went down into the next corner and I dumped him. He does it to everybody else, why can’t I do it to him?”
The crowd showed its disapproval with strong booing toward Busch, who changed his trademark victory bow for a mock wiping of his eyes like a crying baby.
Keselowski earned a roar of approval when he vowed payback.
Keselowski is on probation with NASCAR for a series of on-track incidents with Carl Edwards, and said he thought Busch took advantage of that because Keselowski has “my hand tied behind my back,” when it comes to retaliation.
Jason Leffler finished second. Pole-sitter Elliott Sadler was third.
Jimmie Johnson claims pole
Jimmie Johnson crossed winning at Bristol Motor Speedway off his to-do list in March. Now he’ll try to make it two in a row by starting from the pole in tonight’s Sprint Cup race.
The four-time defending NASCAR champion turned a lap at 123.475 mph in Friday’s qualifying to put his Chevrolet on the front row.
“Everybody wants to win here,” Johnson said. “We all know how hard I fought this track myself, my own demons, whatever it is that we finally got over in the spring to win here. I would love to go out and win again.”
Johnson bettered Carl Edwards, who earned the second starting spot with a lap at 122.937 in a Ford. His hold on the pole was for just a few minutes — Johnson ran his lap two cars after Edwards’ attempt.
Patrick to return to NASCAR
JR Motorsports expects to field a Nationwide Series car next season for Danica Patrick. JRM co-owner Kelley Earnhardt said Friday she’s waiting for the 2011 IndyCar schedule to be released to determine how many races Patrick will drive in NASCAR. Patrick is running a 13-race schedule this year for JRM that is built around her IndyCar commitments.
Through six races so far, Patrick has a career-best finish of 24th at Chicago last month. Her average finish is 30.5.
Meanwhile, Carl Edwards said Friday he has committed to racing the full Nationwide Series schedule next season.
Edwards said he will drive the full season in NASCAR’s second-tier series even if he’s not eligible to race for the Nationwide championship.
NASCAR is discussing rule changes to the Nationwide Series to develop its brand. One of the proposals is making full-time Sprint Cup drivers ineligible for the title.
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